THE STAR OF ENDOR BY EBEN COBB " T1lwe - more thing, in 11,.avenand ~artla, Horatio, 2'1aa11are drMmt qf in your plaUo,oplay." - 8HA.1tB8PUJlB. HYDE PARK, MASS. EBEN COBB, PUBLISHER Digitized by Goog Ie COPYRIGIIT, 1891, BY EBEN COBB. C. J. PETERS & SON, TYPOGRAPHERS AND ELECTROTYPER8, 146 HIGH 8111itET1 BotTON. Digitized by Goos le Digitized by Google .. INTRODUCTION. A REMINISCENCE OF YEARS AGONE. NEARLY half a century .ago - midsummer - and the afternoon's closing hours. • I sat enshadowed by the "old fort," on the seaward side of Noddle's Island. The tide was well on the ebb, and a broad stretch of beach and flats made out to the margin of the yet retreating waters. I was in that happy, ecstatic mood, so apt to be the humor of the youth, who, while yet a boy, revels in the glorious dream that the full measure of manhood's experience makes up the volume of his mind. The hush that seemed to rest on bay and land alike was broken by the sound of footsteps, which bespoke the approach of some party from towards the ferry­ landing; and I raised myself from my reclining posi­ tion upon the grass, in order to make observation of the intruder. It was a man; and my keen, infallible judgment at once pronounced that there was something strikingly wrong about the approaching 9enu1 homo. He was throwing his right arm about in a strange, lunatic 3 Digitized by Goog Ie 4 INTRODUCTION. manner, and, as he came nearer, I distinctly heard him ejaculating sentences of incoherent muttering, at times seeming to address the clouds, and anon his wit­ less, vacant _talk appeared directed to the inanimate stones that o'erspread the beach about him. He seated himself upon a small bowlder, directly beneath my position upon the bluff's brow above. I now had a chance to scrutinize the new-comer more closely. He was not of the ordinary order of lunatics; that I quickly and firmly decided. Some misfortune aad turned from a current of sane flowing a mind that might, under healthful environments, have worked in unison with sanity and high intelligence. I was not a radically bad boy, and from the bottom of my heart I pitied the bereft individual down beneath me, still babbling his random discourse upon the vacant air. He removed his shoes and stockings, rolled up his loose pants above the knees, and, rising from his seat, he slowly waded far out into the soft ooze, until the stranded eel-grass hedged in his further progress. Now my pity gave way to fear and apprehension. "He is going to drown himself ! " is the thought that came instinctively to my mind. I knew that demented peo­ ple often seek to take their own lives, and I heroically determined that I would risk an encounter with the object of my solicitude, if necessary, rather than refrain from striving to debar him from the rash act of suicide. I relied greatly on my ability to run, in case he should, in a frenzy, turn upon me. Digitized by Goog Ie 1X1:'RObUCTION. 5 " Say ! Mister ! " I cried, as I hastily scrambled down the precipitous bluff, "there ain't no clams out there!" How much that brief exclamation of mine divulged of the deep penetration of my mentality, and its masterly power of grasping the necessities of the occasion! I would not have the poor fellow think that I knew he was crack-brained. I pretended that I thought he was after clams. Heavens! how he started when he heard my voice! I had saved him. I knew it. How thankful I felt! and is it to be wondered at, that a thrill of gigantic pride suffused my whole being, conscious as I was at the moment, that my forethought, caution, and wise procedure had snatched a fellow-mortal from a watery grave? • Although I had brought him partially to his senses, like many a madman, there was a tricky shrewdness in his malady that strove to take on the garb of sanity. He yielded up the idea of self-destruction; but to have it appear that his excursion out into the slimy ooze had not been a bootless one, he commenced to poke about, and gather up all manner of little unmeaning driblets from the devil's-tails, and other tide debris, that strewed the outer flats; and one by one he placed these dripping telltale nothings of his crafty subterfuge into the side pockets of his coat. How vain it is, thought I, for .a brain bereft of reason to try deception upon a mental power all awake to the inwardness of things, as is my own I D1gi1izedby Google 6 INTRODUCTION. He returned to the bowlder, and adjusted his stock­ ings and shoes. "I have been watching them. I wouldn't let any­ body steal them while you were out in the eel-grass. Now, if you know the way, I would go right home and be good." I said this for two reasons. I did not wish him to think I lingered near to get a close study of his craze-marked features, and I also wanted to allay any tendency on his part to turn his distemper upon my person in any violent mode of manifestation . The last injunctionary clause sprang spontaneously from my con­ siderate heart. The peculiar transformation that passed over his face I could not exactly understand. There was something in it of wonderment and an embryonic smile merged together, giving his features such an expression as I decided might naturally be the outcome of a mind in such a disordered state as was his. He took from his pocket a silver twelve-and-a-half­ cent piece, handed it to me and quietly departed. Never had a sane man bestowed upon me in so prodi­ gal a manner, for so slight an obligation. "Alas! " I reflected, as I watched that receding form, " that I must attribute this seeming generosity to a mental inability to comprehend the act." A few hours later, beneath my home-roof, I stood in the presence of my venerable sire.I I related to him the full particulars of my afternoon's experience upon 1 The late Rev. Sylvanus Cobb, D.D. Digitized by Goog Ie INTRODUCTION. 7 the beach. Conscious as I was of the mighty impor­ tance of my own sagacity and discretion, in connection · with the occurrence, I necessarily dwelt at length upon those more pronounced details, wherein I had displayed that amazing amplitude of mind which must draw, even from a parent, the most enthusiastic outpouring of laud­ atory encomiums. I closed the narration . There was no mistaking the conglomeration of psychic manifestations that were playing upon my father's face. It was a congregation of all those quaint forces of mentality, which, when marshalled and placed in apt position, do their effective action with the explosion of a mere breath . Slowly, but meaningly, his head was oscillating forward and back ; and his eyes peered into mine with a queerish gaze, that turned the proud current of my veins into curdled abashment. He11poke: 44 My son, if, in after years, by hard and persistent study, labor, and experiment, you can so perfect your­ self as to, in a measure, approach the insanity of the man you spoke with upon the beach this afternoon, how more than proud I shall be of you I I met him as I left the ferry-boat, on my way home. He was waiting to cross over to Boston. He informed me that he had been seeking specimens for scientific study, and had met with fine success in his search. So you are the one who told him to go home and be good. Ha, ha l Digitized by Goog Ie 8 INTRODUCTION. he related the incident to me. It pleased him much. My boy, that man is LOUIS AGASSIZ!" There was a profound hush in the chamber of my soul- and then shame stamped a thundering blow upon my memory that I can never forget. Years, many years, have passed ; I ha.ve loved, as well as respected him; I have been his pupil, and gladly have I called him master; I have heard the bells toll, and the word whispered, He is no more of earth. · Panegyrics to bis name, ladened with com­ mendation's most lofty pulse, have fallen upon my ears. I have looked where art, with studied grace, has striven to album in the stone a vestige of bis greatness ; but nowhere in a.11 the wide arena of · eloquence's domain, nor art's most ardent toil, does that great soul stand before my mental vision so like a god, as, on that long-ago afternoon, pouring out his unstudied inspiration before the very shrine at which he most worshipped, he stood hand in hand with the Infinite, -AGASSIZ IN THE MUD l Digitized by G og Ie CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION, - A REMINISCENCE OF YEARS AGONE. 3 I. INITIATION AT THE MYSTIC SHRINE 11 II. ENTRANCED, - FROM EARTH TO NEBULA 17 III. FROM NEBUl,A TO THE ASTRAL SPHERES 38 IV. HYPATIA's CODE APPLIED • , , , 59 V. CONTINUATION OF HYPATIA'S CODE 82 VI. SCIENCE AND SCIOl,ISM , 100 VII. WISDOM AND CREDULITY • , , , 111 VIII. AUTHORITY 114 IX. INTRODUCTION TO AN ANALYSIS OF THE JEWISH JEHOVAH , • , , , , , , , • , , 124 X. THEOI,OGY AND RELIGION OF JEHOVAH • • 128 XI. THE INFINITE WITHIN, SEPARATED FROM THE GOD-CONCEPTION WITHOUT , • • • • • 143 XII. THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS, THE NAZARENE 154 XIII.